Dispatches from the World of ADHD: Model Building, The Chubby Kid, and the U.S.S. Reliant.

I’ve been in love with her since I first saw her on the big screen as a chubby child, the shape of her, her grace, her build, the elegant curves of her body – a vessel of good, taken over by alien invaders and turned to evil use.

The U.S.S. Reliant.

Her build simultaneously more compact, yet somehow broader, her nacelles an inversion of those possessed by the U.S.S. Enterprise, the imagery foreshadowing the clash of opposites that was to define the film as she went stalking the Enterprise through the murky, psychedelic depths of the Mutara Nebula in what is the best Pre-Kelvin Timeline Trek movie ever.

Her build, like so many other iconic ships, vessels, structures, weapons, aliens, the worlds they come from, their cultures and languages from so many science fiction and fantasy films that spread out in the post-A New Hope Star Wars cinematic world, burned itself into my brain, and stayed there, and for better or worse filled my ADHD head and became my fascination.

I would beg and plead with my mom usually, sometimes my dad, when he was around, to buy me the ships. I would completely lose myself, immersed, as my imagination took over, and I would replicate the soar, the swoop, and the swoosh of those ships that moved so swift and gracefully – a way that I felt I my fat, clumsy-feeling body would never be able to move.

For the past two weeks, I’ve taken advantage of being on my ADHD medication which allows me to begin a task and finish unto completion. I’ve been cleaning out my closet of all the Star Wars and Star Trek toys, memorabilia and paraphernalia in order to make room and deciding which gems I’ll post up on EBAY to auction, and which to keep. As I was doing so I came across two good-sized models: a tie fighter from Star Wars and The U. S. S. Reliant.

Like many of the toys I’ve kept, I bought this model back in 1999, after the release of The Phantom Menace. As with most things in my life back then, before my medication, the thought of making the model was something I’d Do In The Future, Something I’d Get To Eventually. And with most goals I’d set for myself back then, Eventually never came. But the guilt would come.

So taking out this model and having it before me with just about a week before I have to go back to work, I figured why the he’ll not.

And I have never built a model in my life. Ever. To me it seemed so difficult, so beyond my skills and abilities as a child, that I would look at other children my age, or their older brothers (usually it was the brothers I saw build models, go figure) in awe like they were Michelangelo or Einstein.

For forty years I always felt like a lazy, incapable, slacker of a loser.

That was before my diagnosis.

That was before being medicated.

Since then, on my medication for both my depression AND my ADHD, I’ve accomplished so much, and I feel capable and smart now.

And I said I’d build it yesterday – Friday, August 4th. But now I’m researching the best polystyrene cement so I can buy the best one for the job.

So, did I complete today? No.

But I have a plan. And like most things I do these days, having a plan means I’m about 85% done. That makes me feel good.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some more research on model making to do.

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